


tell me how it ends (and i'd do it all again.)

by toeshur



Series: tell me how it ends [1]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Didn't Know They Were Dating, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie playing hot potato with Richie's heart, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Post-Canon Fix-It, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, and, they get there eventually though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28991052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toeshur/pseuds/toeshur
Summary: Eddie looks up from his pancakes. ‘Oh.’ He says, ‘Like, as in.' He raises both eyebrows slightly.‘Yeah, I’m still in love with you.’ Richie confirms. ‘Sorry.’ He adds after a pause.Eddie gapes a little.‘A plate of fries for Gonzo.’ A plate slams down in front of them rattling both their water glasses and Richie jumps. ‘And another prissy water for Sam Eagle.’ Slam. Then the waiter storms off. Eddie doesn't even twitch still staring at Richie, who's grimacing at his fries that are definitely full of pissed-off waiter spit.Okay, so maybe moving to New York was a rash idea after all.or: A glimpse into Richie's first 3 months in New York featuring: The Many Facial Expressions of Eddie Kaspbrak, (1) Rabbit named Peaches, Richie’s New Mom hoodie, Eddie and Richie being Just Friends, and a letter.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: tell me how it ends [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140503
Comments: 48
Kudos: 233





	tell me how it ends (and i'd do it all again.)

**Author's Note:**

> hi. I wrote this to cater to me specifically and for academic stress relief but hopefully it’ll appeal to someone else too :)  
> Some Warnings: Eddies canon relationship with his mother and wife, mentions of Bev’s abusive relationship - nothing explicit, canon typical violence though no one is hurt too badly, references to Stan's suicide attempt though again not explicit, Richie is a bit sad sometimes.  
> This sounds way more serious than it is; this is basically just Eddie and Richie hang out and have lunch a lot: the fic.  
> Title is from Surrender by Walk The Moon which is what I’ve come to think of as the unofficial theme song.  
> enjoy :)

After everything, it's Eddie who finds him on the steps outside Derry General because of course, it is. Richie hears him before he sees him which is usually the case for anyone identifying Eddie Kasbrak, whose idea of an inside voice is yelling in a slightly gentler tone with no change in volume. But this time it's not because of Eddie making a dramatic entrance (which he is known to do) but rather Richie identifying the cadence of his footsteps on the stone, which is veering on a little too pathetic even by Richie’s standards, but he has a hard time conjuring up the appropriate level of embarrassment through sheer exhaustion.

He'd tried calculating the hours they're all running on with no sleep but gave up when it cleared past way too fucking many. There's a sudden weight on his shoulders and Richie glances up startled just in time to see Eddie settle beside him on the step looking deliberately forward. Richie allows himself 3 seconds to take him in before bringing his attention to the hoodie that was draped across his shoulders and pauses just before he’s about to put it on.

At that moment he’s convinced he passed out on the steps because he must be dreaming. Laying in Richie’s hands is a garishly bright pink hoodie that reads _Achievement Unlocked: Motherhood!_ in 3 different increasingly ugly fonts haloed by a game icon in the shape of a baby’s pacifier. Richie _adores_ it. He looks up at Eddie in increasing delight, sure his face is about to explode. Eddie stubbornly pretends not to notice.

‘Got it from the gift shop.’ Eddie explains.  
  


'Thanks.’ Richie slips his new favourite piece of clothing (because of how offensively ugly it is not because it was Eddie who bought it for him) over his head and nearly loses his glasses in the process. Eddie tsks at him fussily and catches the glasses neatly before they can tumble down the long staircase. He cleans them on his own shirt and hands them back once Richie rights himself.

Now he has on the extra layer Richie realises how cold he actually was, not entirely certain how long he’d been out here before Eddie thought to look for him. Richie had lost his own jacket sometime between the Neibolt house collapsing and the ride to the hospital where it was being used as a makeshift bandage for Mike's leg. Richie mourned its loss, not for the first time in the last few hours, he really liked that jacket. However, that reminds him-

‘How's Mike?’ He asks. All 7 of them had miraculously made it out of Neibolt unscathed, or so it was thought until after reveling in the house's demise, Mike suddenly collapsed to the ground when the adrenaline wore off long enough to remind him of the deep gash in his thigh that he neglected to tell the others about. Their collective shock was broken when Richie moved forward quickly to stave off the bleeding and snapped Bill out of his paralyzed horror to call an ambulance. Eddie had to take over when Bill couldn’t get out the first word.

‘Good,’ Eddie exhales. ‘A few stitches but no lasting damage.’

Richie nods relieved. The quickness in which the blood had soaked Richie’s leather jacket had them all fearful that Mike had hit an artery and Bill's face had drained as though the red stains on his hands were his own.

‘You did good.’ Eddie adds, unexpectedly. Richie furiously ignores this, not even near being able to begin processing that, and asks instead about Eddie's brand new hole. Eddie’s face twists as it always does at Richie's phrasing which is of course why Richie keeps using it.

‘It’s fine, no infection,’ Eddie says like he’s disappointed, ‘Which is fucking me up more than anything the clown ever threw at me. Do you know the amount of piss and shit we waded through while I had an actual hole in my face? Not to mention all the fucking dirt and the _blood_ .’

‘Mike's blood not mine - obviously. And maybe Bev's, though,’ Eddie stops to tilt his head in an exaggerated show of thinking ‘ _was_ that Bev's blood? I don’t think it was. Do we even know who the hell she's covered in right now?’ Eddie visibly shudders. ‘Anyway, the point is I should have an infection and I don't - and I made them double-check. Twice. So I’m cocking it up to Derry Magic otherwise I might just actually go insane.’ Eddie finishes to breathe, presumably.

‘This is you sane?’ Richie asks, too fondly.

‘Oh shut the fuck up.’ Eddie runs his hand through his hair in a futile attempt to smooth it back down from where it escaped its carefully jelled Lego figure hairstyle, and then grimaces at his hand and tries to clean it on his equally dirty pants leg. Richie has seen him go through this ritual 3 times since they left the sewers. Eddie glances up at him, noting the silence. His eyebrows do an impressive impression of two caterpillars kissing.

‘You ok?’ Eddie asks in his ‘quiet’ voice. A woman making her way up the steps on Eddie’s other side jumps slightly but Eddie doesn’t notice.

‘Me?’ Richie says, caught off guard.

‘No, I was talking to that guy.’ Eddie points back towards the hospital.

Richie follows his gaze to an old man standing behind them just outside the hospital door, clearly, a patient judging by the gown and the IV stand he’s holding on to like people do in movies. He has an impressive beard for a bald guy and shakily raises his cigarette to his mouth, the smoke floating up past the sign directly above his head that reads _No Smoking_. Richie stomachs the feeling that he’s just stared directly into a time portal for the second time in 24 hours.

Richie snorts, turning back around ‘Well, he seems fine enough to me.’

‘What about you?’ Eddie asks brusquely, ‘You fine enough?’

‘Yeah.’ Richie sighs and looks along to Eddie sitting next to him, ‘Yeah I think so. You?’

Eddie hums. ‘Relatively speaking.’ And ain't that the truth.

‘I have to go home soon, actually. That's why I came to find you.’ Ah, there it is. The other foot, always kicking Richie in the balls. They both studiously avoid looking at the other and pretend that they aren’t.

‘Ah.’ Richie says in understanding and feels unreasonably rejected. ‘The Wife.’

‘The Wife.’ Eddie repeats in the same tone. Richie forces himself not to read into that. He desperately wants to go back to 2 minutes ago where he’d forgotten that Eddie was married at all.

‘What about the others?’ Richie asks, clearing his throat and sticks his cold hands into the pocket of his New Mom sweater. It’s actually a lot more comfortable than the cheap font would suggest, and he welcomes the soft fleece against the tender skin on his hands from being scrubbed raw.

‘Well, Bill’s staying behind with Mike until he gets back on his feet.’

Richie has to look up at that to give it the look it deserves.

‘Yeah, I know.’ Eddie says to Richie’s raised eyebrow his own raising back in a salute. So that’s that then. Richie continues his study of his shoelaces while Eddie continues, ‘Stan’s still on the phone to Patty.’

Stanley called his wife as soon as they got out of Neibolt, just before Mike's leg gave out, which according to Eddie's Rolex was around 4 hours ago now. They've all by now had a conversation with Patty Uris, firmly on a first name basis, who has taken everything remarkably well enough for it to be slightly concerning. But Stan loses the permanent shake in his hands that had been present since he showed up at the townhouse, bandaged up and apologetic about missing dinner when he’s talking to her so all of them welcomed Patty happily.

‘So I think it's safe to say he'll be heading out with me, if not sooner.’ Eddie deduces.

Richie hums in agreement, ‘And what about Benverly?’

Eddie frowns in a way that Richie knows he’s amused by the nickname but he thinks it's stupid so he doesn’t want Richie to know he finds it funny. _Eddie Look No.4_ , his mind supplies him. It consists of Eddie looking very angry, which some people might say is Eddie’s default expression but Richie knows by the slight indent of his cheek (the non- stabbed one) that Eddie is biting it to keep the frown in place.

‘I heard Ben say something about a boat but that could be the painkillers.’ Geez Haystack. ‘It would do Bev good though, I think.’ Eddie adds suddenly, ‘to not have to go home yet.’

Richie looks at him carefully. ‘Yeah.’ Neutral, ‘Probably.’

Eddie nods again a few times, avoiding eye contact. Richie hides a smile when he raises his hand again to fix his hair. This time he stops himself halfway and starts fiddling with his wedding ring instead, twisting it around his finger in a practiced motion. It's an anxious tick that Richie clocks as New. When they were kids, after killing the clown the first time, Eddie had transferred the habit of sucking on his inhaler when he was panicking, to turning it over and over in his hands. Richie once asked, in the quiet safety of Eddie’s bedroom under the glow of the stars they stuck up there years before, about why he still had it, and Eddie, with a solemn frown he’d yet to grow into, explained that he _knew_ he didn’t have asthma but the inhaler helped calm him down anyway. He didn’t want to give in to his mother by actually using it so he settled for just holding it in his hands, but he admitted shamefully to Richie that he was embarrassed that he needed it at all. Richie can’t remember what he said in response and hopes he never does because he can guarantee it was the wrong thing. He looks at Eddie now, twisting his ring, and doesn't ask.

‘So,’ Eddie begins and Richie’s stomach hits the ground, ‘What about you?’

‘God I don't know.’ Richie says, honestly. He doesn’t want to think about the house that's waiting for him in LA and the million unanswered texts from Steve on his phone. He doesn't know how to confront the fact that it's probably going to be a long time before he can even think about stepping on a stage again. Maybe ever, if the roll of nausea he gets when thinking of stage lights, blinding his eyes. Yeah, that doesn't look good.

‘Do you think I could crash with Mike or is there a thing there that I'd be in the middle of?’ Richie asks instead, half-serious, half wanting to distract Eddie with gossip.

Eddie leans forward, ‘Oh there's definitely a thing there, dude.’ Got him ‘I left Mike’s room earlier cause I was sure they were about to do another one of those forehead things.’ Eddie mimes touching his own forehead with the heel of his palm.

‘No.’ Richie gasps, playfully dramatic.

‘In front of the nice nurses!’ Eddie is hilariously flustered.

‘Surprised they didn’t just fuck right there on the table.’ Eddie rolls his eyes, knowing he’s being made fun of.

‘Like they would fit, have you seen Mike these days?’ Eddie’s eyes go distant and what the fuck.

‘Well,’ Richie says loudly ‘Guess I’m going back to LA.’ He does not want to know any more of Eddie's thoughts on how _big_ he thinks Mike is.

‘You don't sound too happy about it.’ Eddie prods.

‘Are _you_ happy about going home?’ Richie shoves the other foot directly into his mouth, and he hopes he chokes on it. There's a silence that brings back that awkward tension Eddie has clearly been trying desperately to dampen. Richie waits it out for another second, ever the masochist, before apologising.

‘No it's-’ Eddie tries to wave it away but Richie determinedly talks over him.

‘No really.’ Richie says, stronger ‘I shouldn't have said that it’s none of my business’

A conflicted look crosses Eddie's face as he looks at Richie and he goes back to fiddling with his ring.

Cause here's the thing.

When Richie first got the call from Mike and began his death march into hell his head was filled with the repeated altered phrases of _oh Mike was my friend_ , _Oh I had_ friends _growing up_ and _Oh all of my friends got hot_. Then he entered the Jade and suddenly the only thing he could think of was _Oh. It's you_. And went through the 5 stages of grief in the space it took for him to get to his seat, stumbling over the memory of the embarrassing unrequited crush he had on Eddie throughout his entire adolescence.

Except it wasn’t unrequited. Not completely, at least.

The rest of the memories didn't reveal themselves until after Its heart was lying squished in their palms and then there was the confusion of the house falling apart around them and getting Mike to the hospital that Richie didn't have the time to process what it meant. Which brought him to having a panic attack into a hand towel in a hospital linen closet and excusing himself quietly for some fresh air (and 3 cigarettes).

Then he examined every one. Every glance that was returned. A smaller hand, squeezing his tightly. Hushed laughter under glow-in-the-dark stars. Eddie’s shocked face under a streetlight. Board games with his parents. Sneaking through bedroom windows. Staying the night.

Kisses.

A lot of them. And _more_ than that, too.

But the one memory Richie gets stuck on and keeps rewinding in slow motion, the one that prevented the joy he should be feeling, of knowing he wasn't alone and that he actually had, at one point in his life, a good relationship. Because that was the issue, Richie remembers. Richie was in love and Eddie wasn’t.

He remembers Eddie’s face, his wide eyes, and awkward apology. The gentle way he looked at Richie was so out of character and wrong that it felt like he was scooping up Richie's guts from the floor and shoving them desperately back into the gaping hole in his chest like _please, please take it back._ Not wanting to look at the mess but getting his hands all over it anyway. Mostly he remembers the humiliation, and despite everything wishing he just never opened his mouth because Eddie didn’t have to love Richie in the way Richie loved Eddie. Having Eddie in any way was enough. He was already pushing it getting to be his best friend, the kissing was like finding a second prize in the cereal box. But it was never the same after that night and Eddie avoided him until he left Derry just a week later.

‘Hey listen, about,’ Eddie starts, evidently on the same path.

‘We don't have to talk about it.’ Richie interrupts. Pleads.

‘Right, right.’ Eddie agrees quickly. Then, ‘It's just that- I don't think we left things off on great terms.’ Eddie does this thing now, Richie has noticed that when he’s feeling really uncomfortable he resorts to talking like he’s in a business meeting. Probably learned it from work.

‘Eds.’ This makes Eddie stop and look at him so studiously that Richie thinks he must have grown a new nose or something. He resists the urge to cover his face and he walks the conversation back and realises he hasn’t called Eddie that at all since coming back to Derry. ‘Really, we’re good.’

Eddie keeps studying his face, eyes flicking back and forth, searching for something. Richie doesn’t know what for but he doesn't stick his tongue out at him which Richie, personally, finds to be a sign of growth. Finally, Eddie's shoulders drop and Richie realises how tense Eddie’s been holding himself when he’s with him. Richie presses his hands to hold his stomach, still safely hidden in his pockets.

‘Yeah?’ Eddie breathes out, relieved.

‘Yeah.’ Richie says seriously, ‘We’re BFFs.’

Eddie blinks at him, ‘Do you have a concussion?’

‘Dude, probably.’ He’s only slightly joking. He lifts his hand to prod gingerly at his head. He fell like, _really_ far.

Eddie taps Richie's cheek to signal him to face towards him and studies his eyes carefully and Richie tries to breathe regular, normal breaths while he does his concussion check. He's already done it twice.

Eddie hums, satisfied. ‘Still good.’

‘Derry magic.’ Richie intones. Eddie removes his hands and goes to fiddle with his own newly bandaged cheek, Richie bats his hand away from it to get him to stop poking at it despite just doing the same thing seconds before.

‘Busted, Tozier.’

They both turn around to see Bev, scrubbed pink but with clothes still covered in something's blood (thanks for that, Eddie), and Richie internally spirals for a solid 3 seconds before he realises she’s referring to him leaving to go smoke without her, and not that he’s seducing a married man. When they were kids Bev and Richie had a pact to find each other first before they ditched the others to go smoke. He shrugs at her unapologetic and Bev rolls her eyes. ‘I was actually looking for Eds, anyway.’

Eddie looks up from where he was fussing with his sweater and points at himself, taken aback.

‘Yeah, you.’ Bev snorts. ‘Stan wants you for something.’

‘What?’ Eddie asks.

‘I don’t know, I’m not his pigeon.’ But she’s smiling.

‘Well, why didn’t Stanantha come out here himself?’ Richie asks.

‘He’s tied to the phone’ Bev tilts her head at Eddie, wry, ‘Literally. He’s had to plug it in to charge and won't move.’

Eddie snorts and gets up to leave. He pats Richie’s shoulder once in parting and kisses Bev’s cheek when he passes, making her eyes crinkle up in delight. They both watch him go, and Bev makes her way to take Eddie’s vacated spot on the step. Richie offers her his last cigarette, silently. She smiles and takes it. They sit like that in companionable silence broken only by _Nice sweater. Thanks_. Bev always knew when Richie didn’t want to talk when they were kids and Richie was grateful enough that he never pushed her when she was quiet too.

He breathes in the second-hand smoke and regretfully books a flight on his phone for tomorrow morning, ignoring how his shoulder burns where Eddie touched it.

+

Richie is in LA for approximately 2 weeks before Steve calls him in for an intervention. _‘It’s just a meeting Rich, Jesus.’_ Steve stares at him, eyes calculating while Richie tells him he wants to take his career in a different direction.

‘Like writing your own material again?’ Steve asks, scribbling in his notebook.

‘Writing, yeah.’ Richie fiddles with the little sculpture Steve strategically placed in front of him. It's a little hourglass filled with water and two penguins who either rise or fall in opposite directions when Richie turns the glass, ‘Not so sure about stand-up though.’

‘No? Like, never?’ The white of his knuckles is visible from where Steve is gripping his pen and Richie winces. He tries to get both penguins in the middle but one of them immediately drops while the other bobs up again.

‘I don’t think I can handle being on stage right now.’ Steve looks like he wants to protest but takes in Richie's appearance, a result of spending a week and a half in a bottle with about 3 collective hours of sleep, and must come to the conclusion that yeah, Richie really can't go on a stage right now.

‘Okay, okay. It's gonna take some work but, sure, we can do that.’

Steve suggests that Richie should take an extended break. Two maybe, three months away to recuperate before making any rash decisions, and while he’s doing that he can maybe work on his writing, see if it's any good. Steve also asks about Richie's old apartment in New York.

‘You know how you still rent that brownstone in Brooklyn?’

‘I do?’

Anyway, Steve suggests the change of scenery might help him. Richie has concluded that Steve thinks Richie is on the brink of another nervous breakdown which is why he’s handling this so well. In fact, this whole thing seems like it's been planned out for a suspiciously long time which Richie adds to the pile of Not Thinking About. Steve thinks going to New York where his career first took off will do him some good. _‘It's poetic or some shit’_ and Richie silently agrees.

He tells Steve he’ll think about it and tries to leave the office with a shred of dignity taking the penguins with him. Richie gets back to his big empty house and settles down on the back deck. It still feels too barren, the pool that he usually doesn’t look twice at captures his full attention, echoes of adolescent laughter bouncing off the surface and reflecting onto Richie’s new glasses. Richie looks down at the blank page in his legal pad, one he’d found on his bookshelf that he can’t remember buying which means it’s at least 4 years old. He writes out a pros and cons list for moving to New York. It goes something like this:

Cons  
\- Packing. What's in the NY apartment?? -> Ask Steve  
\- Career-wise: LA has more connections for writing TV  
\- NY is busy  
\- Will have to talk to B and E  
\- Moving P

Pros  
\- Eddie is in New York

Richie groans.

Pros  
\- ~~Eddie is in New York~~  
\- Bagels  
\- Change of scenery or whatever  
\- Having seasons again  
\- It doesn't have to be permanent.  
\- Your friends are in New York

Richie sighs. So he’s going to New York. There’s just the small issue that Richie has barely spoken to his friends since leaving Derry, and hasn't spoken to Eddie at all. His phone sits switched off in his room where it has been for the last 2 days - he’s been communicating with Steve solely through email which is probably why he’s so keen to banish Richie across the country. One second he was reading and keeping up with the new Losers group chat that Bill added them to and the next he was filled with an overwhelming feeling that told him to destroy his phone and eat the evidence. He ignored that because he hadn't quite lost it just yet but he did shut off the phone and hide it in a different room. Like a normal person.

Back in Derry, after Richie booked his flight to LA he went back into the hospital with Bev to find the others. In the waiting room, Bev made her way towards the corner of the room where Eddie and Stan were grappling with Stan's phone, the cord wrapped around Eddie's arm and their heads banging together as they argued which airline was superior. Bev spread across three chairs and yelled hello to Patty over the line. Richie watched the 3 of them feeling oddly lightheaded and moved down the hall to the examination room where they patched up Mike.

‘Did someone call for a Doctor? Cause I’m ready for your examination.’ Richie announced, draping himself across the doorway suggestively.

Mike looked up at him from the table and burst into tears.

‘Oh _no_.’ Richie righted himself, horrified.

‘Mike’s a little emotional right now.’ Ben said needlessly from his spot by the window.

Bill sighed, good-naturedly, and moved to sit next to Mike to rub at his back gently. From Bill and Ben’s reactions, Richie understood that this was not the first time this had happened. Still, Richie feels like he just kicked a baby duck. Mike then began earnestly thanking Richie for saving his life causing Richie’s eyes to nearly fall out of his head.

‘Eddie said the cut wasn't deep enough to hit an artery?’ Worriedly he looked at Ben and Bill questioningly

‘It wasn't.’ Bill reassured, still smiling, ‘Mike is on a lot of pain killers.’

‘And you ruined your jacket.’ Mike wailed, completely devastated. Bill resumed his back rubbing.

‘Yeah, it's ok buddy. Look, I got a better one.’ Richie pulled at his new sweater so Mike can read.

‘I like it.’ Mike nodded, sniffing. Bill tilted his head, squinting.

‘Where did you get that?’ Ben asked aghast.

Even though Mike was talking about his leg injury from Its spider claw, it got Richie thinking about the body he’d left in the library, but when he tried to ask the others in the waiting room, Stanley finally looked away from his phone long enough to say it's taken care of and told Richie not to worry about it. Which is a very scary sentence. He has a suspicion Stan has also told the others not to say anything to him which, on principle, makes him a little angry because Richie has never handled being left out well, but in this case Stan’s probably right. If Richie thinks more about the fact he is apparently capable of killing a person it might just be the final thing that makes him snap.

Stanley and Eddie left for the airport soon after that once they managed to get flights around the same time so Eddie could drive Stan to the airport without him hanging up the phone. Both of them hugged Richie tight beforehand and Richie jokingly asked if Eddie was running away to become Stan and Patty's third to distract them all from the fact that he was definitely choked up about it. Richie’s goodbyes to the rest of them the next morning were no less emotional, which shouldn't have surprised him as much as it did. Mike apologised profusely for the crying but Richie assured him that it was a normal reaction to Richie threatening to strip and let himself be hugged for the sixth (!) time. Bill reminded him about the group chat he created before he left, Eddie and Stan had already sent a text early that morning saying they still remembered them, but they were all still a little on edge.

Then Richie was gone.

He spent his first week back in LA in a daze, sporadically dropping messages in the chat that he still remembered them but was busy fixing the damage of his missed tour dates. This prompted another apology from Mike that made Richie feel like a heel for lying. He doesn’t know why he feels so anxious talking to them now compared to when they were all together in Derry but each notification sparks a new wave of _get out_ through him so strong that he resorted to not checking his phone until he absolutely had to.

This leads him to try to figure out how he’s going to show up in New York and face Beverly and Eddie after weeks of radio silence.

It turns out he didn’t have to worry at all.

When he sends the text of his vacation plans he gets a lot of exclamation marks in response. Bev privately sends him 5 champagne bottles and 2 dancing lady emojis. She only settled in New York herself the day before - Ben did in fact take her on a vacation sailing on his boat - and was staying in her friend Kay’s apartment who was currently modeling in Tokyo. She doesn't mention the divorce and asks to get dinner when he’s settled in which he readily agrees to, now wondering what on earth he found so scary about Beverly Marsh.

Bill and Mike also call him while he’s packing to send their good wishes and expressed their jealousy that he was moving closer to some of the others. It looks like they’ll still be in Derry for a couple more weeks until Mike can sit in a car for a long period of time without being in too much pain. Strangely enough, neither of them seem to be too upset about it, even Mike who’s been dying to leave town for 27 years never says a word beyond how he wished they were all closer together. Bill sent the ending of his movie to the director from Mike’s couch and said with a self-deprecating amusement that production was moving a lot more smoothly without him on set. Richie was worried about what Bill's wife had to say about all this but apparently, Audra thinks it’ll be good for their relationship to not work together so closely. So Bill plans to stay with Mike until the end of filming. Richie has a lot of hypocritical thoughts about that but he leaves the getting involved to Stan and Eddie who are for sure talking about this regularly.

Stan had sent Richie a text with just a link to the airline he should use, which should not have made Richie have to sit down on the kitchen floor for a minute but it did. Besides Eddie, Stan is the one loser Richie has been avoiding the most and hating himself for it. But Stan seemed understanding and would text him daily screenshots of people he found stupid on Twitter and birds he spots in his garden with no message underneath and no need for a response. Richie makes sure he sends at least an emoji back anyway. Stan would be there when Richie was ready to talk.

Eddie hadn’t said anything at all except the initial exclamations in the group chat, which for Eddie was a rare thumbs-up emoji. Richie tries not to think too hard about it except he absolutely does obsess over the fact that Eddie did not clarify if it was a sarcastic thumbs up or not.  
On the way to the airport with his two bags, Steve would be bringing the more precious cargo when he’s flying in for a meeting the following Sunday, Richie once again opens his text chain with Eddie which just says.

**It Eddie where fuck r u!!**

Which was hilarious for the 24 hours where Richie thought that this was how Eddie texted people. However all of his messages in the group chat have since had proper grammar and punctuation so clearly, Eddie was just in a rush, which is fair since he had just been stabbed. Looking at the message it’s still kind of funny but the empty space of screen after it makes Richie feel like he swallowed a pufferfish. Richie turns off his phone again and tucks it away in his carry on so he can’t easily grab at it without opening multiple zips first.

He spends the first half of his flight in a drug-induced sleep and the second half re-reading one of Bill's books, this one is actually one of his favourites if he doesn’t read the final chapter. Overall it's not the worst flight he’s ever had and by the time the plane hits the runway he’s convinced himself that maybe this was a good idea after all.

Richie nearly turns around and gets on a plane straight back to LA when he lands at JFK and has a missed call from Eddie.

+

The first time Eddie kissed him was a Saturday.

They were making the walk back from the clubhouse, a rare occurrence these days but it was chosen as the most fitting backdrop for Ben’s surprise 16th Birthday party. When Beverly led him down the steps, Ben’s already flushed cheeks shone as bright as his eyes, taking in the poor handmade decorations and Christmas lights and 6 excited voices yelling who made what. They had only been there an hour when Eddie’s watch beeped at them all announcing his departure. Sad, but accustomed to this after years, the others waited until he was gone to lament over it, knowing talking about it in front of Eddie just upset him further. They cut the cake before he left and Eddie tucked his carefully wrapped piece into his pocket for once not complaining about the risk of diabetes and when he made his way out of the clubhouse to the sound of goodbyes, Richie followed.

It was a tradition that one of the losers walked Eddie back home when he had to leave earlier than the rest of them but more often than not Richie was the one who volunteered first. It once led to an argument between Richie, Bev, and Bill that left Eddie so flustered by the attention that he exasperatedly pointed out that nothing was stopping all of them from coming which he later regretted when they fought over who got to walk next to him.

Tonight though, no one had protested when Richie got up. Likely because they were trying to stave off the inevitable moping when Richie came back alone. They walked along slowly enough to drag it out as long as possible without getting Eddie into trouble, bickering lightly about the new Batman comic that Eddie boldly insisted was better than the Superman volume. Richie agreed but pretended not to just to watch Eddie get riled up about it. Eddie climbed up on the half wall beside them while he ranted on, hopping down from walls to stones at different levels, never once pausing his ramble while Richie watched from beside him on the sidewalk hands out of his pockets, just in case.

They get to the house before Eddie’s which has the last blind spot they can stand in without Mrs. Kaspbrak spotting them - under a streetlight that blocks her view from the kitchen window. They stop there to finish their argument, Eddie standing still standing on top of a rock. When Richie turns more fully towards him to get into prime argument position he stops, struck dumb to find that he and Eddie are eye to eye.

‘Hey.’ Richie blinks at him.

‘Hi.’ Eddie answers, looking amused. It's dark out but Eddie’s face is lit by the white blur of the streetlight above haloing around him in a way that makes it seem like he is the only thing in the universe. Richie is about to make his goodbyes, embarrassed for staring so openly.

Then Eddie leans forward and grabs Richie's face and kisses him.

Eddie freezes and opens his eyes, meeting Richies staring back at him equally wide, lips still firmly attached. Eddie slowly moves back, with an audible pop. He removes his hands from Richie’s frozen face and they stare at each other, not knowing which of them is more shocked.

‘Well!’ Eddie says too loud and hops down, ‘Thanks for walking me home, dude.’

‘Wait-’

‘I need to get going,’ Eddie says, walking backward, ‘before my mom calls the cops again.’

Richie tries to follow but his legs have melded with the cement. ‘ _Eddie_ -,’ he sounds desperate.

‘Tell Ben I said sorry-’

‘-did you just-’

‘-again. Bye Rich!’ and then Eddie turns and jogs the rest of the way home.

Richie watches him go glued to the sidewalk then turns back a little until his back hits the post of the streetlight. He looks around quickly but is relieved to see the street is deserted. Richie runs both hands up and through his hair pulling at the root, stressed and not knowing what to think.  
This is probably the best moment of his life.

His hands slide down until he’s touching his own burning cheeks and laughs feeling hysterical but also lighter than he’s felt in years. He makes it back to Ben's birthday party in a daze. Dizzy with hope.

+

When Richie pulls up at the brownstone he instantly feels 10 years younger. For an instant, his back feels lighter and his hair thicker as he stares up at the dark green door, but the streaks of brown wood poking through from neglect bring him right back.

This wasn't the first apartment he had in New York - that was a much smaller place across the city that was half the size and he shared it with 3 other dudes. He started renting this place after his first big stand up show. He sold out in the smaller theatres around the city and it was enough for him to move out and get a nice place. He’d only lived there for a year before moving out to LA and into his big fuckoff house. He’d forgotten how much he’d loved this place and he sends a quiet thanks to his past self for being so unobservant and terrible with money that he’d kept renting it for 10 years. Richie makes way too much money. He steps through the doorway, not knowing what he’ll find, and leaves his two bags by the door to look around.

It's a lot smaller than his house but bigger than he remembered, with an open plan living and kitchen area and a dining table off to the right-hand side. The walls of the living area are a soft green, matching the front door, and the bay windows light the room warmly in the rapidly setting sun in a way that already feels homelier than the stark white of his place back in California. The walls are lined with several dark brown bookcases, most of them empty and some with odd things he didn't seem to want to take with him. Steve must have sent a cleaner in because there is none of the dust that Richie had expected and in the centre of the room on his coffee table is a little housewarming basket with coffee and some basics to tie him over until he can go to the store. He really needs to give Steve a raise. Richie collapses on the soft grey couch and relishes in the way he sinks in comfortably like it's brand new. Looking around he feels soothed enough that when he takes out his phone the incessant paranoia is subsided to harmonize with the barely-there hum of his new refrigerator. He scrolls through his contacts and without letting himself think twice on it hits Eddie's name and waits. On the second ring.

‘Edward Kaspbrak speaking.’ Richie is already smiling.

‘What are you wearing?’

‘A shirt that says _I Hate Trashmouth Tozier_ with a picture of a crushed trashcan with glasses on it. The glasses are broken.’ Eddie responds without pausing.

___‘___ Hot.’ Richie says, honestly.

‘Did you just get in?’ Eddie asks briskly.

‘Yeah just got to the apartment and saw you called.’

‘Yeah sorry, I wanted to catch you before you left.’ Eddie sounds full of regret and all the nerves Richie had about coming here dials up to an 11. The hum of the refrigerator drowns out any other noise in the room until it sounds like a burning tea kettle screaming.

‘Oh?’ Richie asks casually. Beside him, his nice throw pillow has been smushed into an hourglass. Richie misses his penguins.

‘Yeah’ Eddie sighs, ‘I wanted to make sure you were getting the right airline.’ Oh.

‘I wasn’t aware there was a wrong airline.’

Eddie scoffs, ‘There are several wrong airlines and they will cheat you out of your money if you’re a bumbling, naive cartoon character with more money than sense.’ He missed Eddie a lot.

‘Well I can reassure you that it's okay, I didn’t pick out my own flight.’ Eddie sighs with relief, and Richie gets that twinge of pride when he does something Eddie approves of which comes second only to the thrill he gets when he does something Eddie doesn't approve of.

‘Yeah,’ Richie continues with more confidence, ‘Stan sent me the link and he is very responsible.’ Silence. This was the wrong thing to say.

‘That mother fucker’ Eddie yells outraged. Richie's eyebrows shoot up. Eddie’s voice goes distant like Richie has been put on speaker. He mutters angrily under his breath. ‘Stanley is a dickfaced shit-biscuit who doesn't know anything about anything.’

‘Uhhh.’ Richie says. Clearly, he’d stepped on a minefield here.

‘I can’t believe you did this to me, Richie.’ Eddie says mournfully, utterly betrayed and Richie is transported back to 8th grade where Eddie and Stan had an explosive argument about whether someone could contract chickenpox twice. It led to them refusing to talk to each other for a week until one day Richie was so stressed about taking sides that he threw up his lunch in the cafeteria. At least Richie has emotionally matured past 13. Mostly. At least enough to know that this feud isn't serious enough to get anxious about.

‘I’m sorry? I’ll take your suggestion when I fly back.’ Richie says fairly and Eddie huffs. Richie can’t help but smile at his grumpiness which is how he knows he’s in danger.

‘Thinking of leaving already?’ Eddie asks, changing the subject.

‘Huh?’

‘You said fly back.’

‘Oh yeah like in a few months. I’ve been ordered to take an extended vacation and the change of scenery is supposed to help me write better or whatever.’

‘You’re writing?’ Eddie says surprise in his voice. Richie squirms uncomfortably, resting his head against the back of the sofa, and stares up at his bare ceiling.

‘Thinking about it.’ Richie says shortly, ‘Anyway are you sending Stanley the longest passive-aggressive email in the world?’

Eddie hums distractedly, the clacking of his fingers on a keyboard coming clearly through the line.

‘I can hear you typing like a madman over there. I promise you the flight was perfectly boring.’

‘Oh no, I'm at work.’ Richie checks the time thinking he’s calculated wrong but no, it's nearing 8pm.

‘Still? It's like 8, dude.’

‘Yeah I know I'm just wrapping up this big project for the weekend.’ His voice is a little quieter, actually quiet, and more guarded than he was before and Richie curses himself for poking at it. He doesn't want to talk about Eddie’s wife. Not just for purely selfish reasons but because Richie can tell when Eddie is thinking about her by the way he sounds smaller as though trying to squish his entire personality down into a little ball so he can protect it. He did the same when they were kids and he was upset about his Mom. But Richie isn’t allowed to comfort him about it the way he did then. He’s not even sure if he has the right to talk about Eddie’s wife at all. He can’t now without coming across as a jealous ex which essentially is exactly what he is, but he can’t ignore the suspicion that Eddie's marriage is a whole bunch of red flags bundled together in the shape of Sonia Kaspbrak. But Eddie does have 6 other friends so Richie makes a note to ask Bev when they’re at dinner to feel out the situation as an unbiased party and hopefully confirm it as Richie being paranoid. Somehow he finds that unlikely.

‘Well don't work too hard. The world will still have risks on Monday.’

‘You still have no idea what I do.’ Eddie says, despairingly.

‘What else could that job title possibly mean?’

‘Everyone at work is avoiding me,’ Eddie ignores him, ‘I think they think I'm in the mob.’

‘Are you in the mob?’ Richie asks, half-serious.

‘Like I'd tell you, blabbermouth.’ Eddie mutters bitterly and Richie knows exactly what he's talking about which for the love of God was-

‘That was one time!’ Ben’s 16th Birthday party was the only successful surprise party the losers had ever accomplished. Mainly because Ben would never think anyone would throw him one and the other reason was that they stopped throwing them after Richie asked Eddie what cake he wanted for his 15th birthday (Chocolate. He and Maggie baked it together.) forgetting that Eddie wasn’t supposed to know about it at all. Richie maintains that Eddie would have been upset if they pretended to forget his birthday anyway but Eddie never let it go.

‘And it's why no one ever tells you anything.’ Which is not true. Eddie told him a lot of secrets after that one but they're doing a good job of pretending that part of their relationship didn't exist. Not that Richie is bitter.

‘So anyway did you call me just to try one up Stan or.’

‘Oh yeah.’ The sound of typing stops briefly ‘I wanted to ask if you wanted to get lunch or something tomorrow. Unless you're busy unpacking.’

‘Nah.’ Richie says very casually. ‘Most of my stuff is coming next week and all I have to eat is Ramen.’

‘Cool.’ Eddie says, infuriatingly more casual, and goes back to typing, ‘Any place in mind or should I pick?’ This sends a little sparkle up to Richie’s brain that unlocks a non-Derry related memory.

‘Oh, actually there’s a diner down here I used to go to all the time.’ It’s where he went after his first open night when he was 20 and continued to go after every show, even when he came back on tour and was performing to 3 times the amount of people. He’d never taken anyone there before.

‘We’ll go there then.’ Eddie says decisively ‘Just send me the location.’

‘Fine. But only if you don't check their hygiene report.’ Richie loves that place he refused to let Eddie ruin it for him.

_____‘____ That's a perfectly normal thing to do?’_

+

The next day Richie changes his outfit 3 separate times and turns up to the diner late wearing the first thing he put on.

‘You dress like a divorced dad going on vacation with his ex-wife who he's still in love with and trying to convince the kids that everything is fine but really you're dying inside cause your wife is moving in with Mark from accounting.’ Is what Eddie greets him with. Then hugs him. Which is cool.

‘Is Mark from accounting hot?’ Eddie ignores him and sits back down which means Mark is smokin'. Richie knew he should've done math in college.

‘You’re late.’

‘Sorry, I took another nap. I'm still on LA time.’ Richie actually got about 4 hours of sleep total, but that’s more than he got in a week in LA, so, small wins.

The conversation moves smoothly like it did on the phone yesterday and Richie relaxes more and more into the belief that he and Eddie will be okay. Then Eddie sends Richie’s plate back when it comes with the wrong order and Richie quickly decides that actually, they cannot be friends. Eddie grabs stubbornly at Richie's plate while Richie tries to grip onto it tight even though he _would_ much rather have fries and Eddie hands it over firmly to their visibly annoyed waiter.

Richie threatens to leave the restaurant, slouching even further down in his seat and Eddie tells him to stop being so dramatic.

‘Well stop harassing the wait staff!’ Richie hisses at him.

‘I wasn't _harassing_ him! It's his job to bring you food!’ Then he leans back adding ‘Plus I asked Tracy if he was an asshole when you were in the bathroom. If she said he was nice I wouldn't have been that harsh but Tracy said he's a dick so.’ Eddie shrugs, nonchalant.

‘Who the fuck is Tracy?’ Richie stares at him, mystified.

‘The nice drinks lady at the bar.’ Eddie points towards the bar where a small woman with very cool hair is, sure enough, making drinks. Tracy notices them looking over and waves cheerily at Eddie. Eddie raises his hand and does a little awkward nod back.

Okay, so Richie _has_ to tell him.

‘Okay, so I should say something.’

Eddie hums, looking down at his plate where he has begun separating his food into separate sections. He waves for Richie to go on, piling his bacon to one side.

‘I'm still’ Richie falters and starts again stronger, ‘I still feel the same about you.’

Eddie looks up from his pancakes. ‘Oh.’ He says, ‘Like, as in. He raises both eyebrows slightly.

‘Yeah, I’m still in love with you.’ Richie confirms. ‘Sorry.’ He adds after a pause.

Eddie gapes a little.

‘A plate of fries for Gonzo.’ A plate slams down in front of them rattling both their water glasses and Richie jumps. ‘And another prissy water for Sam Eagle.’ Slam. Then the waiter storms off. Eddie doesn't even twitch still staring at Richie, who's grimacing at his fries that are definitely full of pissed-off waiter spit.

Okay, so maybe moving to New York was a rash idea after all.

‘We haven’t seen each other in, like, 20 years.’ Eddie squeaks.

Richie visibly cringes and looks away, ‘Yeah I know, I get it, it's weird. But I do alright? I thought it would go away but it didn't, so.’ Richie shrugs, crossing his arms over his chest, staring out the window.  
There's a long silence and Richie, never learning, feels the need to defend himself.

‘And, like y'know’ Richie gestures vaguely and Eddie’s eyes follow his hands, ‘Ben still loves Bev after all this time, and- and now Mike and Bill! So it’s not- it's not just me, it must be like a - I don't know - a side effect of the forgetting thing, y'know? Like how, mentally, parts of us are still 18. It's a thing. I read about it on-’

‘Richie.’ Eddie says over him and Richie’s mouth audibly snaps shut. Embarrassed for being embarrassed Richie rubs at his neck. Eddie studies him for a moment.

‘I'm not like, mad at you.’ Eddie starts. His eyebrows are very intimidating.

‘I know.’ Richie interjects, too quick, looking away.

‘Are you sure?’ Eddie asks incredulous, ‘Cause you look fucking _scared_ of me, dude. What do you think I'm gonna do?’

‘I don't know!’ Richie yells. Then collecting himself, ‘I just. Wanted to let you know. While I'm in New York. Which,’ He adds quickly, ‘by the way, I didn't like. Make up the work thing as an excuse to follow you here or anything.’

‘Ok, I didn't think that at all but now I definitely think that's what you did.’

‘I didn't!’ Richie waves both hands wildly, and Eddie moves both water glasses to safety.

‘And, like, Ok! You were a factor. But not because of’ Richie waves a hand between them, ‘but just in a _I have no friends in LA and Eddie and Bev are here_ kind of way.’ Richie finishes, slightly out of breath. He takes a long drink from his water.

‘Rich. I’m glad you came to New York.’ Eddie tries to catch his eyes.

‘Ok.’

‘I guess I'm just confused.’ Eddie says drumming his fingers lightly on the table.

‘About what?’ Richie blinks at him.

Eddie gives him Look No. 13: _I know you know what I’m talking about and just acting like you’re an idiot_.

‘Oh, are we gonna talk about that?’ Richie wrinkles his nose.

‘You brought it up!’ Eddie's face has officially gone pink which means he’s graduated to Annoyed.

‘Yeah well you haven't said anything about it so I was hoping we could just move on and never talk about it again.’ Richie says tensely.

‘But,’ Eddie starts.

‘Nope!’ Richie reaches up and grabs at the air before bringing his fist down the table between them in a fluid motion.

‘Ok, what is that? What are you doing?’

‘I’m closing the shutter on this conversation.’ Richie says primly and goes back to eating his fries.

‘You’re -’ Eddie groans theatrically and leans forward and reopens the imaginary shutter and Richie yelps in protest.

Eddie barrels on, ‘I'm not saying your feelings aren't real, I'm not an asshole. I just. I haven't done anything?’ His voice lilts up like it’s a question. Richie doesn't know what he means.

‘What do you mean?’

Eddie sighs frustrated, ‘Like back in Derry I was barely any help to you. I just stood and watched that thing eat your face.’ Richie leans back so he has room to roll his eyes with his entire body.

‘Eds. We've been over this.’

‘Don't call me that. And it still doesn't change the fact it was Bill and Stan who saved you.’

‘Okay?’ He’s lost him.

‘And I was one of the first to leave Derry and then we didn't talk after that.’ He stares at Richie like he’s just said something very important.

‘Are you just listing facts?’

‘My point is,’ Eddie says loudly, thankfully giving up on subtlety, ‘I just don't get why you're in love with _me_ when Stan and Bill are the ones who saved your life. And Mike and Ben were there longer so-’ He lifts his hands as though to say there you go. Richie is having a hard time tracking Eddie's thought process but it sounds like Eddie just implied that Richie has a boner for all of their friends or he’s just incredibly easy. Which, meh.

‘Eddie, what?’ because yeah, _what_ , ‘There's no _conditions_ you need to meet here dude. I just love you.’ Richie says, simple as that if a little irritated.

Eddie looks at him, spellbound. They drop it after that, Eddie sensing Richie was really ready to leave the restaurant. Eddie is quiet for the rest of the day. When Richie leaves him at the end of his street, he thinks that this will be the end of it, that Eddie will avoid him like the last time Richie eviscerated himself in front of him. But Richie can't bring himself to regret saying it now. Without the memory wammy, he can give Eddie some space without risking forgetting but he’s not giving up on being his friend unless Eddie asks him to. The look on Eddie's face, like he couldn’t believe Richie could love him because he hadn't been _useful_ will keep him up at night. He now can’t believe he ever regretted saying it for a second when they were kids. Eddie deserves to hear it every day and Richie can put up with chipping at his own insides bit by bit every day if it means Eddie knows that he is loved. And this time he won't let him forget.

But Eddie doesn't give him the cold shoulder. In fact, in a complete turn of events, Eddie calls him the next day and asks to hang out again. Richie agrees, wary that this is Eddie letting him down gently but when he goes back to the diner, Eddie just smiles at him and insults his shirt, and starts talking about this exhibit at the museum about trains he’d read about in the paper that morning. Richie makes fun of him for still buying newspapers but when he suggests that they go to the exhibit Eddie looks up at him with eyes that deage him by approximately 35 years. So that's what they do.

Every week he sees Eddie, sometimes for lunch at the diner, or somewhere closer to Eddie’s work where they bicker for his entire lunch break and Eddie tries to eat something new each time. Sometimes they hang out on the weekend when Eddie’s eyes look dull at the thought of going home, and Richie drags him to Museums and Art shows that he knows Eddie will hate to brighten that spark back up. Every time they come back from these outings, Richie is convinced it will be the last, that soon enough Eddie will turn around and say _actually no_. But Eddie never does.

+

Before Richie knows it he’s been in New York for a month. He and Bev have begun a weekly ritual where they like to dress up and go to brunch. Eddie went to the first one and refused to go with them again out of second-hand embarrassment, accusing Bev of enabling Richie’s crimes against fashion while Bev cackled too loudly for the very fancy restaurant.

So it became their thing, which Richie is actually secretly pleased about, and hopes Bev is too. As much as he loves hanging out with Eddie (too much) it’s nice to have this time with Beverly who each week seems to be glowing brighter and brighter, and Richie has this theory that if he sits close to her enough he can photosynthesize from her light.

Today’s chosen theme is floral and Bev is wearing a white puffy shirt that reminds Richie of a pirate and rose embroidered overalls, topped off with her floral Dr. Martens that reminds him of her punk phase. It's a mess of pattern and colour but it somehow works, whereas Richie forgo his original idea of wearing a sunflower costume (didn’t deliver in time) and is instead wearing the three shirts he could find that had some sort of flower on it to make up for the fact he has no appropriately themed pants with Beverly’s stolen daisy necklace around his neck. In short, he looks no different than usual and Beverly was very disappointed in him.

It’s at this 5th brunch with Beverly that Richie finds out that Eddie is getting a divorce.

‘You didn’t know?’ Bev’s eyebrows shoot up past her yellow daisy sunglasses. Her hair has recently been cut, almost as short as it was the summer they met which means her flummoxed expression is now no longer hidden by the locks.

‘No. Why would I?’ Richie tries to act like this news does not bother him in any way despite the fact he just almost choked to death on his virgin mimosa. They will likely have to find another new brunch spot for next week. There are about 5 different mini Richies running around his head screaming.

Beverly gives him a look over her sunglasses that is close to Eddie Look No. 12 ( _you’re an idiot_ ) but her eyebrows aren’t quite at Kaspbrakian level yet but the fact that they're apparently now going to be roommates installs a fear in Richie that together they’ll be unstoppable.

‘You see each other, like, every day.’ Beverly points out not incorrectly.

‘No we don't.’ Richie scoffs as though he wasn’t literally just thinking the same thing. Beverly obviously doesn't believe him

‘We don’t talk about his marriage.’ Richie admits. He pokes at his French toast, wishing vaguely that he asked for syrup. Eddie would have asked the waiter for extra syrup he thinks looking judgingly at Bev who does not notice.

Bev blinks, ‘Like at all?’

Richie shakes his head and takes a drink, not for the first time he is tempted to order a real mimosa. Maybe a whiskey. But pictures Eddie Look No.32 (sad with a hint of disappointment) and resists.

‘I don’t think I can talk about his wife.’ Richie puts his empty glass down and looks at Bev, who has now moved the sunglasses to her forehead to glare unguarded.

‘She’s a heinous bitch.’ Bev says with venom, as though daring Richie to correct her. It confirms every uneasy feeling Richie had about Eddie's marriage and he pushes his plate aside not trusting himself not to throw it up - from guilt or upset he doesn’t know. He does know that Bev and Eddie have gotten closer, he wasn’t sure what they’re relationship was like when they were kids - Richie is learning that he can in fact be very self-absorbed - but he knows that these days if Eddie isn’t out with him then he’s out with Bev. He had to be even more secretive about that than he is with his and Richie’s outings, but he still made sure he made time for Beverly anyway. Eddie had become very protective of her and her of him which Richie is grateful for, for both their stakes. If Richie tried to protect either of them the way his heart wants to, he knows in his gut that it would do more harm than good.

‘I know but I can’t call her that.’ Richie says pointedly.

‘Why not?’ Bev asks perturbed as to why Richie is choosing now to be sensitive.

‘Cause, it’s different. I’m...biased.’ That's the closest Richie’s come to breaking his admittedly more and more glass closet and sweats a little. He knows he has nothing to worry about, with Bill's announcement that he was leaving his wife and joining Mike on his road trip.

Bill had called everyone in on a group skype call to announce his new life development. The earnest speech lasted approximately 10 minutes which nobody could fault him for since Bill looked so excited and free for the first time since he was 12 years old. Mike had sat beside him half in mortification over the attention but mostly looked smitten. The enthusiastic support and congratulations from the rest of the losers should’ve been enough for him to make the move but Richie would rather not bring attention to it at all and if one day he falls in love with some other guy then he can just introduce him as his boyfriend and that would be that. He ignores the fact that this is a very unlikely scenario.

‘Oh,’ Bev's eyebrows knit together, then something passes along her face as she looks at Richie, recognising something, and he gets the feeling that it's not him she’s seeing in front of her anymore. ‘ _Oh_.’ Bev says again with understanding. Richie nods, confirming, and looks out toward the busy street wishing she would cover eyes back up so he wouldn’t have noticed how soft they’ve gotten.

Bev and Ben have been taking things slow. Long-distance has been working for them, it gives Bev space and independence she needs and when their schedules line up she takes him out on dates in New York and Ben will cook for her in his fancy house in the woods.

Richie waits for the question but it never comes. Instead, when he looks over at Bev she is smiling kindly and asks if he wants another round of mimosas. He agrees gratefully and she laughs when Richie makes the _Couple of Virgins for a Couple of Virgins_ joke even though he makes it every single time and they continue lunch without talking about Eddie again. Richie relaxes a little, genuinely finding it difficult to freak out right now when he’s with Bev. Bev talks about Ben’s secret Sims 4 addiction and Richie does an impression of Bill that makes Bev's mimosa come out of her nose and he even manages to snag some kale to take home to Peaches before they get thrown out of the restaurant. So Richie calls it a win.

+

When Eddie enters Richies apartment for the first time he almost goes into cardiac arrest.

‘What the fuck is that!’ Eddie yells from on top of Richies very nice glass coffee table. ‘Was that a rat? Do you have rats? Richie I swear to God if you've brought me here to your rat infested sinkhole of an apartment like an evil spider I will-’ And so on.

There's a lot to unpack there - Richie desperately wants to pick apart the evil spider thing but Eddie did bring up a rather important point that Richie hadn’t told him about,

‘Oh shit. I forgot to tell you about Peaches.’

‘Peaches?’ Eddie pales. ‘Oh my God, you named it. You named the rat in your apartment. And you named it Peaches.’ Richie ignores Eddie's meltdown on the coffee table knowing no words will reassure him at this point and tries not to be offended that Eddie apparently thinks he lives in rat infested squalor.

Eddie did eventually bring up his impending divorce to Richie. He did it casually over dinner one night, by wondering out loud if he should ask for leftovers to bring home for Bev and Richie made a dumb joke about what Ben would say to that and that was it.

‘Peaches buddy, it's ok. The very loud man is just a friend I promise.’ Richie calls out to the apartment at lage. He goes to the fridge and takes out a piece of kale while Eddie hisses angrily doing an incredible performance of a spooked cat ready to pounce. ‘Peaches’ Richie whistles, ‘come on out bud.’

From behind one of the bookshelves, a round bundle of white and orange fluff hops cautiously to where Richie is now crouching on the floor in the archway of the kitchen, holding the leaf of kale out coaxingly. Peaches is not a rat. The bunny rabbit takes the leaf gently in his large front teeth before ripping it harshly from Richies hands which makes him laugh.

‘Yeah, you're welcome.’ He says in a small voice that Eddie has never heard before. Richie pets Peaches' little head and rubs at one of his ears while Eddie makes his careful descent from the coffee table, a lot slower than the single olympic level leap that brought him up there from the doorway. Baffled, Eddie registers that Richie seems to now be telling the bunny about what he and Eddie had for lunch earlier. The casual way he's conversing with the rabbit tells Eddie that this is a regular occurrence.

Richie has a pet bunny rabbit. Richie named his pet bunny rabbit Peaches. Richie talks to Peaches regularly like they're a human being. Eddie feels very normal about this and it definitely does not give him the urge to bite something.

‘Hey you wanna meet him?’ Richie asks, turning his attention back to his second favourite woodland creature. It's the eyes. He stands with Peaches now securely trapped in his arms, and both of them watch Eddie, whose face is doing something very funny.

‘He gets nervous when things are suddenly loud.’ Richie explains and Eddie is a very loud thing. Eddie tentatively makes his way over to them, looking inexplicably nervous about Richie’s rabbit not liking him and Richie’s heart clamps once. He gets closer and sees Peaches is shaking a little and looks up at Richie in blatant alarm.

‘It's fine. He does this.’ Richie reassures him, ‘The vet told me he has a nervous personality.’ Eddie hums in sympathy staring at Peaches with furrowed brows and Richie hides a smile.

‘Peaches, this my friend Eddie. Eddie, this is Peaches.’ Charmingly, Eddie carefully reaches out and pets the little guy's head. It's so small that Eddie only needs to use the pad of his thumb, stroking lightly a few times.

‘Hey Peaches.’ Eddie says, ‘Sorry I scared you.’ Richie feels his cheeks ache, watching Eddie carefully run his hand down Peaches’s neck.

‘You wanna feed him?’ Eddie looks up at him with wide eyes and _oh god, maybe this was a bad idea._ Richie has a sudden memory of Eddie in Mike's old farm, freaking out about anthrax but instantly going quiet when Mike dropped a baby lamb into his lap. Eddie sat quietly and more still than Richie had ever seen him and pet the lamb very gently for the rest of the visit.

Richie goes back to the fridge ignoring Peaches’s attempts to jump onto the shelves, holding him firmly against his shoulder. He grabs another leaf of kale and hands it to Eddie and stays very still. Peaches leans towards Eddie, sniffing violently which prompts Eddie to offer the leaf. He jumps when Peaches snatches it gracelessly and Richie laughs softly,

‘Yeah he does that. He'll like you now though, cause you fed him.’

‘Just like his dad.’ Eddie says blithely and Richie laughs again. Peaches has stopped shaking and let's Eddie rub his ear a few times before he starts to wriggle in Richie's arms, demanding to be let down.

Richie says, ‘Okay, okay hold your horses.’ and sets him down gently back on the floor. Peaches hops away, quickly and out of sight, presumably to go back to napping. Eddie watches him go, still a little wide eyed.

Without the distraction of the rabbit, Eddie now sees that Richie's place is not in fact a glorified trash dump that his anxious brain projected but in fact quite a nice place, thank you very much. Richie watches anxiously as he takes in the apartment, but also with a little pride. The place is a lot more put together than it was when Richie first arrived in New York a month ago. The bare bookshelves are now filled with his extensive movie collection that Steve bitched that he definitely did not need but Richie feels more at home with them there. There’s a lesser, but still modest, amount of books stacked too, interspaced with little trinkets Richie has collected or stolen over the years like his penguin hourglass and photos of the losers he could find and frame. Eddie’s eyes linger on those for a little longer and Richie has to go pour them both glasses of water to distract himself.

After, embarrassingly, going through a few breathing exercises that Stan linked him (again with no caption) Richie goes out and finds Eddie kneeling in front of Richie’s Blu Rays, reading the titles. Richie hands him the water which Eddie takes gratefully with a smile and Richie settles on the couch near him but with enough space for his own sanity. He sees Eddie is fiddling with one of Peaches’s toys, embarrassingly enough it’s one Richie made on his own - a little cardboard ball filled with scraps of paper he had lying around. Richie drinks his water, hoping it will disguise his face going decidedly warm but Eddie isn’t looking at him anyway. Figures.

‘Your apartment is really nice, Rich.’ Eddie says sincerely.

‘Yeah your Mom thought so too.’ Eddie goes back to looking around nosily but emphatically gives Richie the finger. Eddie goes to peek under the couch and Richie realises he’s looking for Peaches.

‘He likes to go sleep in a corner by the front door.’ Richie explains and Eddie looks up startled. ‘That's probably what he was doing when we came in, he likes to come say hi when I get home.’

Eddie purses his lips, ‘That’s adorable.’ He says, angrily. Richie squirms and puts the glass down on the coffee table. Eddie looks like he is working up to say something so Richie gives him a moment and tidies up the notebooks strewn across the table.

‘You never told me about him.’ Eddie says, sounding put out but trying to be casual.

Richie blinks at him, ‘Honestly I just forgot I would have to tell you.’

Eddie looks at him evidently confused (Look No. 3.) So Richie clarifies: ‘I forget sometimes we haven’t really been friends for 20 years. So I forget to mention big stuff ‘cause I..Kinda just assume you already know?’

Eddie looks at him surprised. ‘Yeah I know, it’s dumb.’ Richie laughs and rubs at his hair, self-consciously.

‘No’ Eddie says, suddenly. Richie looks up at him and Eddie clears his throat. ‘No I...I get that.’ They smile at each other and both look away at the same time.

‘Steve had him while I was in Derry,’ Richie explains, ‘And then kept him a little longer until I settled in here.’ Eddie nods in understanding.

‘That seems a little above his pay grade.’ Eddie teases, hesitantly.

‘Yeah.’ Richie says simply. He doesn’t want to go into his history with Steve. Steve who is now far more than simply Richie’s manager and the closest thing he had to a friend until 2 months ago. Steve had seen him at his lowest and still stuck around, not only as a friend but as his manager too when anyone else in their right mind would have quit. It’s too messy to explain to Eddie without also divulging some secrets that he doesn’t want to share so he says no more.

Eddie seems to get it anyway, in that infuriating way he does when he looks at Richie as though he actually sees him. For a second, for the first time in a long time, Richie is angry at Eddie for looking at him like that. Looking at Richie and seeing him for what he really is and pretending that it doesn’t horrify him, like he didn’t beg Richie to hide it away from him. Then Eddie is taking out an X-Men DVD claiming he never got to see the movies and Richie is insisting that they watch them all.

+

After that it's like bolts of tension start to come loose between them, the first being Eddie’s impending divorce and the second Richie inviting him into his space. It's in Richie’s apartment later the same week that the final bolt is released.

They were hanging out in Richie’s apartment until Bev finished work so they could go see some new horror movie that Bill had instructed them to report back on. Richie was sitting on the couch ripping up scraps of paper for Peaches to play with while they’re gone and was half watching _The Golden Girls_ on mute and half listening to Eddie’s commentary as he wandered his apartment. Eddie started doing this thing, now that he was allowed in Richie’s apartment, where he wanted to know everything about it. He would do this by picking up one of Richie’s trinkets or books and ask him about it and Richie would tell him, filling in the blanks for him as much as he could remember of his years in between Derry. Eddie was less forthcoming since a lot of his included his marriage but every so often Richie was blessed with a little nugget of Eddie Knowledge that he stored away in the Eddie Box in his brain.

This time Eddie was holding up the hourglass that Richie had swiped from Steve’s desk and was trying as Richie did to get the two penguins to meet in the middle, unsuccessfully. Richie blabbers on about where he got it from which turns into him going off on a tangent - which he often does during these show and tell moments but Eddie always listens and steers him right back- about a documentary he watched about penguins and definitely did not cry over the fact they only fall in love once in their lifetime.

‘So speaking of mating,’ Eddie says.

Richie's hands and mouth stop abruptly. He turns his head around very slowly and stares. Eddie looks pale and a little pink around the ears like he too can't believe that's what he just said. Richie lets him sit in it, fascinated to see if Eddie will stick to it. Eddie looks like he’s still deciding himself before he clenches his jaw and holds his head up defiantly, clearly deciding he’s going to own it which Richie finds faintly admirable.

‘Are you,’ Eddie tries to put his hands on his hips, forgetting he’s still holding the hourglass. He sets it down and clears his throat ‘Like is there anyone-"

‘No.’ Richie says firmly.

‘What?’ Eddie asks, affronted. He recovers quickly from his previous awkwardness and looks relieved to be on more familiar ground. He crosses his arms angrily.

‘No.’ Richie repeats, ‘I’m not talking about this with you.’

‘Why not?’ Eddie protests, voice high. "It’s not weird!’ He says, definitely finding it weird.

‘You’ve gone up an octave.’ Richie informs him mildly.

Eddie clears his throat again and says in a deliberately deeper voice that does _not_ give Richie chills, shut up: ‘It's not weird. We can talk about that.’

Richie looks at him exasperated but Eddie stubbornly doesn't back down. Richie narrows his eyes. ‘I don't really date.’ He tries.

Eddie softens his posture, shoulders coming down, and nods for him to go on, showing he's listening. Richie sighs and says through gritted teeth, ‘There was a guy a couple of years ago that I met through work I guess. Didn't work out. Obviously.’ Richie gestures around the room.

Eddie nods again and puts his hands on his hips looking like what he assumes is Eddie's projection of a Supportive Friend which coincidentally is very Ben-esque. ‘Why didn't it work out?"

Richie looks at him debating and shifts his weight on the couch. Eddie tracks the movement sensing nerves and his eyes soften in concern. Richie says,

‘I told him I was in love with him and then he never spoke to me again.’

Silence.

Eddie's eyes are the size of dinner plates. Richie watches his face redden rapidly and then drains just as quick, his mouth opens several times and he looks almost on the verge of tears and Richie can't take it anymore and bursts into laughter. Eddie looks worried then shocked and then completely outraged in all of 3 seconds.

He finally finds his voice, ‘You-you..you - I can't- you!’ Sort of.

Richie howls with laughter collapsing backward on the couch and Eddie starts throwing things at him

‘That is so not fucking funny!’ A notepad. ‘Fuck you!’ Several pens. ‘My heart fell out of my ass, you slimy goblin fuck!’

‘ _Slimy?_ ’

Eddie takes off his shoe and throws it at him.

‘Ow.’ Richie laughs, ‘Stop!’

‘Fuck you!’

Then he collapses beside him, out of breath

‘Was kinda funny’ Richie says. Eddie holds his hand to his heart and glares at him but his lips are twitching upwards.

‘Okay,’ Eddie says, ‘I get it. No asking about your love life.’ He holds up one of the scraps of paper Richie had been tearing and waves it like a white flag. Richie nods satisfied.

‘I just…’ Eddie pauses and fiddles with the paper, ‘I just don't want you to think that you can’t talk to me about anything, y'know?’

‘Yeah Eds, I know.’ But he doesn't offer more and Eddie nods, accepting.

‘Don’t call me Eds.’

They smile at each other. And with that they both feel like they’re finally back to normal, all the unspoken tension and awkwardness that had been sitting on top of them drains away. As though now Richie has joked openly about their past, and acknowledged that Eddie broke his heart once upon a time, it now exists between them in a way that they can both finally move on from it.

It’s a turning point and Richie welcomes it with open arms.

+

After an unsuccessful morning of writing, Eddie walks through his front door with a face that screams Do Not Ask Me About Work and tells Richie that they’re going for a walk. Richie stares down at himself, sitting on the couch, wearing nothing but boxers and a workout shirt that says _If lifting was easy it would be called your mom_ , and looks back up to Eddie mouth full of Lucky Charms. Peaches is running excited loops around Eddie’s legs and he carefully makes his way to the fridge without stepping on him, grabbing a sprout, he silently asks Richie for permission to feed it to him, and Richie nods. He suggests to Eddie that they could go to the park, that it would help his writer's block, and obediently doesn't ask why Eddie isn’t at work.

Mentioning the park, however, prompts Eddie to immediately leave again to go back to his and Bev’s apartment for “necessary supplies” and a firm instruction for Richie to shower ignoring Richie’s whining that he is not a child. Richie brings along his legal pad, pretending that he might use it, and meets Eddie at the park an hour later who has inexplicably changed into a different pair of jeans and now has a backpack strapped securely to him with a smudge of sunscreen on his nose. He looks like a dork.

‘Did you shit your pants?’ Richie makes his way over, referring to the outfit change, Eddie rolls his eyes and starts heading into the park, not waiting for him.

‘Fuck off, these are my Casual Jeans.’ Richie can hear the capitalisation. Eddie is so weird.

Eddie shows him the birdseed he brought with him so Richie deduces they’re headed for the ducks, which he doesn’t mind at all, but is a little surprised since Eddie gets jumpy around birds and generally everything that moves a little too fast and a little too suddenly, which is ironic considering.

‘I do not!’

Richie finally manages to annoy Eddie enough to weed what’s bothering him out of him which turns out to be a stomach ache that he woke up with, panicked about, and then called in sick, then felt stupid about for calling in sick only to circle right back to panicked again.

Richie stops walking and grips Eddie's little face in his big hands, ‘Repeat after me: I do not have stomach cancer.’

‘I do not have stomach cancer.’ Eddie repeats dully.

‘Good job.’ Richie pats his cheek once and releases him.

Eddie grumbles, ‘You don't have to be patronising about it.’ They continue on, Eddie carefully stepping around twigs and sticks and at a quicker pace to keep up with Richie’s casual stride

‘Eddie baby, if you want to stand here and talk about which of us here is more patronising we're going to miss them.’

‘Miss who?’ Eddie spits, ‘The _ducks_? Where are they going?’ Eddie calls to his back, perturbed, but speeds up anyway.

They find a bench that's semi-secluded, not many people around the park at 1pm on a Wednesday, Richie supposes. He gazes out toward the water and as always sees the shadows of the kids they once were, messing around in the quarry, and a glimpse of a future that never happened. He looks away, swallowing.

‘Am I crazy?’ Eddie asks, glaring at the pond, ‘I’m crazy.’

Richie holds out his thumb and forefinger in a pinching motion, ‘Lil’ bit.’

Eddie reaches out and widens the gap between the fingers, grumpily. Richie makes a noise of disagreement and pinches even smaller, putting the hand right in Eddie's face. Eddie bats the hand away and smiles reluctantly. Mission accomplished.

Eddie gets up off the bench and sighs. He takes out Stanley’s recommended birdseed from his backpack, now sitting by Richie’s feet, and throws them out toward the ducks who are edging closer to the bank, immediately targeting Eddie. Every time he throws out a handful he jumps back a few feet but the ducks are slow and wobble towards him harmlessly and every time Eddie jumps back he steps forward again, a small smile playing at the corner of his lips. Richie averts his gaze to his blank page, picking at it and when the words don’t magically come to him he rips the page out harshly and begins folding it up into little pieces. It’s meditative and helps get rid of that insistent buzzing in his hands. He sits the finished crane next to him and looks back up to Eddie who is now yelling at one of the bigger ducks for being greedy, hands on his hips, and gesturing at the empty bag. He stalks back over in a huff, not noticing the trail of little birds following him until he sits down and then he sighs exasperatedly at his little fan club.

‘You brought this on yourself.’ Richie drawls.

‘I don’t have any more! Stop looking at me!’ He shoos. Some ducks wander off back into the water, but a few stay close enough to Eddie and Richie can see from the involuntary little shoulder wiggle he does that he is secretly pleased.

‘What is that?’ Eddie asks suddenly, loud in the same demanding way that hasn’t changed since he was 8 and he asked Bill the exact same thing when Bill brought Richie to their lunch table, and Richie follows his gaze to the little paper crane. Richie thinks it’s quite self-explanatory and raises his eyebrows at Eddie. ‘Did you make that?’ Eddie asks in the same tone, his eyes bouncing between the notepad in Richie’s hands and Ben Jr.

‘Yeah.’ Richie says a little warily, Eddie doesn’t look like he’s about to make fun but Richie can’t quite remember what this facial expression means which makes him anxious. He starts fiddling with the paper again which instantly grabs Eddie's attention.

‘Can I see?’ He asks, and Richie is about to attack, on the defence, but Eddie looks nothing but curious. So Richie silently starts to fold another crane, slowing down the movements for Eddie’s sake, and angling himself so he can see what he’s doing more clearly. Relaxing, Richie begins to narrate like he's the Australian host of a Kids TV crafts show and Eddie actually plays along, asking him questions _Well I’m glad you asked Spaghetti_ and to repeat some folds which Richie does patiently, giving the folds made-up names that he insists are the correct terms to Eddies indignant frown. And finally, he finishes with a _voila_. Eddie stares at the crane, and Richie finally clocks the facial expression and hands it over to him.

‘For me?’ Eddie asks excitedly like it’s not just a crumpled piece of Richie’s 4-year-old legal pad. He holds it gently in his hands, fiddling with the wings like he does with Peaches’s ears. Richie clears his throat and gives him Ben Jr. too when he stands up.

‘You can give this guy to Bev. It’s what he would want.’ Richie says solemnly, and Eddie takes the second crane with the same amount of care and zips both of them safely in his backpack and when they leave the park they have to double back three times to try and lose Eddie's little army.

+

‘Hey,’ Eddie asks a few weeks later, ‘Can I ask you something personal?’

‘Sure.’ Richie says absently, staring intently at the instructions of the Lego spaceship Ben had sent him. Word had spread of Richie’s origami hobby thanks to Eddie and Bev and when Ben called him to ask about it Richie actually answered the phone and mentioned offhand that it was a way to keep his hands busy when he was feeling restless. A couple of days later the Lego set arrived at his door with a greeting card of a grinning chimpanzee that Ben captioned with a smiley face. Richie wasn’t sure if that was a dig or not but he was too overwhelmed by the gesture to care and now has been trying to build the thing for 3 days straight to little avail. The chimpanzee card sits on his bookshelf next to a framed postcard from Mike and Bill, mocking Richie’s struggle.

‘You don't have to answer.’ Eddie says, bringing Richie’s attention from where he was burning holes into the greeting card. Eddie has set up camp in the apartment where Richie has started to refer to as Eddie’s workstation in his head. He takes up a corner of Richie’s dining table, with his laptop and a scary-looking binder that Richie has been explicitly banned from touching.

‘Just spit it out.’ Richie says when Eddie fails to continue, looking for the green piece that the instructions say he should have. He is convinced Ben has taken out some of the pieces to fuck with him.

‘Okay, asshole.’ Eddie huff, ‘I was just wondering..uh when you knew. About me.’

That makes Richie look up. Eddie isn’t looking at him but at his laptop screen pressing absently at one key, not typing just fidgeting. ‘When I knew I was in love with you?’ Richie clarifies. He says it casually now like he would say _water is wet_ or _Ben is hot_.

‘Yeah.’ Eddie answers, shortly.

‘Umm.’ Richie goes back to his spaceship, gives up on the missing piece, and begins constructing a wing instead. ‘I think it was when we were in science class and you wanted to be my lab partner.’ He muses. Eddie blinks rapidly like that wasn't what he was expecting.

‘I was your lab partner for like all of high school.’ He says, confused.

‘Oh no - this was in middle school.’ Richie says and clicks a couple of pieces together triumphantly. Take that, Hanscom.

‘What.’ Eddie sounds weird but Richie is too absorbed now that he’s on a roll with this wing. He explains further as he builds;

‘You always went with Bill and I always got put with some other kid ‘Cause Stanley was in a different class.’ Another click. ‘But one day, Mrs. Polinski asked us to pair up and when Bill turned to you, you said “Sorry man, I'm with Richie.” and I guess I,’ He pauses now, finally a little embarrassed, and shrugs. ‘I liked how that sounded.’

He doesn't look over at Eddie, continuing with his building, but Eddie has stopped the incessant tapping of his keyboard, giving Richie his full attention which makes Richie’s neck heat up.

‘How old were we?’ Eddie asks, suspicious.

‘I don’t know’ Richie answers honestly, he turns the completed wing around in his hand, trying to match it to the diagram. ‘12? 13? It was right before that summer.’

‘ _Jesus._ ’

‘What?’ Richie turns around immediately alarmed, thinking Eddie accidentally deleted a file again. That was one of the scariest days of Richie’s life, including the 2 he fought a demon sewer clown from outer space but Eddie is looking at him, not the computer. He opens his mouth and shuts it again in blatant shock (No.10).

‘I didn't think this was news?’ Richie puts down the Lego spaceship wing feeling self-conscious now, the ease he had begun to feel about being open about this tenses up again and he wonders if they never got over this after all.

‘No...I just didn't realise how long. I mean? 12?’

Richie flushes, ‘You asked.’ He shrugs again and Eddie deflates, deliberately easing his tense posture to look more approachable. Richie knows that Eddie took a seminar on body language.

‘Sorry. You're right, sorry.’ Richie nods easing up too, involuntarily following his lead. ‘I just meant that I didn't even realise I had a crush on you until _after_ I kissed you.' Richie’s heart leaps despite himself.

‘You had a crush on me?’ He blurts.

Eddie looks at him weirdly, ‘Duh.’

Okay, Richie maintains that this was not an obvious conclusion to come to but shoves it away so he can’t obsess over it. He’s moved on from that. Stanley would be very proud of him if he ever told him about this. Richie will send him a smiley face about it anyway.

‘That's so embarrassing for you, dude.’ Is what Richie finally settles on.

Eddie looks murderous. Richie laughs and hides behind his spaceship instructions again while Eddie stabs at his keyboard.

‘Why did you want to know?’ Richie asks after a while.

Eddie hums a little, contemplating how to answer. ‘I don’t think I was ever in love with Myra.’ He says. Richie nods.

‘Guess I was just...curious.’ Eddie says sounding conflicted about something. He doesn’t say anymore, just goes back to work, and Richie as ever follows his lead.

So life in New York was turning out to be a good thing for Richie. Which is why, of course, something had to give.

+

The initial high of moving into a new place in a new city where his friends are starts to wear off somewhere around the second month. He doesn’t notice it himself at first, Eddie has a big client and has been working more than usual, for longer hours, so they don’t see each other for a couple of weeks and then he misses brunch with Bev because she’s visiting Ben that weekend. They call though, and Richie has actually begun writing something that feels worthy enough to show Steve so he gets swept up enough himself that he doesn't realise he’s slipping.

It starts with Richie not keeping up with the groupchat, which he has been decidedly consistent about since those first couple of weeks post-Derry, and that small move allows the anxiety to slip into his other text chains until he’s ignoring his texts altogether. He makes sure to answer phone calls and checks his phone once a day to give signs of life and avoid anyone worrying and then hides it away again and writes. He rationalises it as being productive and that Steve would be proud of him for taking this so seriously which is probably why when he hits a block after two days that he takes it a lot harder than he probably should.

Richie scraps the comedy script he was working on, tentatively thinking about stand up again but mostly workshopping it for some sort of TV show. The origami lessons with Eddie have given him an idea but as he looks down at the pages he realises there’s nothing funny about it at all.

Which brings Richie to now: lying on his back on his living room floor in the little patch of sunlight that Peaches likes to doze in. He lies next to Richie now, in the little sweater Eddie got him, enjoying the rare company. They lay there together until the sun sets and Peaches hops away to do his business and stretch his legs but Richie doesn’t move until there’s a knock at the door. He tilts his head toward the noise startled and thinks furiously if he ordered anything and forgot about it which happens unfortunately often. The next knock is decidedly firmer so Richie gets up with a groan, knees popping loudly, and is not as shocked as he should be to find Eddie.

He _is_ shocked at the bag of groceries he has in his hands and stares at them perplexed while Eddie shoulders himself into the apartment. Eddie sets the grocery bag on the kitchen counter and his backpack on the floor then turns to Richie and looks at him with such a startling intensity that Richie nearly stumbles back from it. Then, still, without saying anything, Eddie goes back into the kitchen and quietly starts to unpack the groceries moving around the kitchen with ease. Richie moves to lean against the island separating the kitchen from the living area and places his chin in his hands to watch him curiously. It takes Eddie pulling out some Twizzlers and a family-sized pack of M&Ms for the memory to hit him. He stares at the snacks on the counter, his favourite from when he was a teenager that Eddie used to bring to Richie’s house when he thought he was sad. It’s a little too much for him to handle, he’s not in the best state to compartmentalise Eddie’s care for him as platonic, and he nearly breaks in half when Eddie pulls out extra rabbit food and vegetables from the bag too.

Eddie doesn’t seem to mind Richie’s silence just packing away quietly and when he finishes he turns to Richie and offers to make dinner while Richie is in the shower. Which is his subtle way of getting Richie to take care of himself so Richie complies before he gets firm about it. He’s in the shower for a long time, long enough that when he gets out and pads into the kitchen in a new combo of t-shirt and sweatpants that Eddie already has dinner set out.

Eddie and Bev started a cooking class a few weeks back but they quit after one class and decided to start their own because they didn't like being told what to do. It’s resulted in Eddie being able to make simple but admittedly delicious dishes that he’s endearingly proud of. Tonight he’s made spaghetti and it makes Richie smile which is what Eddie was presumably going for because he doesn’t even protest when Richie sings ‘Eddie’s Spaghetti.’

The shower had woken Richie up enough that he felt more alive and he thanked Eddie for the groceries, embarrassed, about letting this happen. Eddie waves him off and asks, ‘As long as you're good?’ and studies Richie closely for a lie when Richie says he’s just overworked himself. Eddie takes his word for it, gesturing him to eat which Richie does happily, now realising how hungry he is.

‘Just double-checking that you're not mad at me because I have issues with people using the silent treatment.’ Eddie says casually in between bites of spaghetti and Richie's stomach tightens and he drops his fork.

‘Oh shit.’ Richie curses himself, realising he hasn't checked his phone in a while. ‘I'm sorry. I'm not mad at you.’

‘It's okay, I didn't really think you were just, y’know.’ Eddie gestures up towards his head with an eye roll that doesn’t make Richie feel better at all.

Richie runs a hand through his wet hair, distressed. ‘I’ll uh.. I’ll make sure to send at least an emoji or something from now on.’

Eddie hums thoughtfully, swallowing a mouthful ‘Yeah, Stan mentioned that.’

'I knew you and Stan talked about me behind my back.’ Richie grumbles moodily.

‘We know you know so it's not behind your back.’ Eddie takes a candid sip of water.

‘That's not how it works!’

‘Fuck you. We care about you.’

‘Ugh.’ Richie responds intelligently, hunching down in his seat like he’s 14.

‘Ugh.’ Eddie mocks, ‘Deal with it, fucker.’ He scoops another mouthful of spaghetti in his mouth aggressively.

‘So is it texting? That bothers you.’ Eddie asks, nudges at Richie’s plate to get him to pick up his fork again. Richie twirls the spaghetti around the plate thinking of how to phrase it when he’s never really said it out loud before.

‘I think it's the...seeing my own words I guess? I don't know it’s dumb-’ He startles at the loud buzzer noise Eddie makes with his mouth, glaring at him. Richie rolls his eyes and starts again. ‘Seeing my own words that I've just said right in front of me puts me in my head I guess.’

Eddie nods at that, thoughtfully. Picking up his glass he says, ‘Okay. Why don’t we do the emoji thing then? Pick one that means it’s cool for me to come over and one that means you’re fine but want to be alone, that way when you’re feeling anxious about it you don't actually have to use words?’ He takes a drink and watches Richie, calmly. Eddie never uses emojis.

Richie thinks about it and ‘Yeah. That could work actually.’

‘Good,’ Eddie says decisively, ‘Now eat your food.’ He kicks at Richie from under the table.

Richie does as he’s told and hums appreciatively at the taste which makes Eddie flush with pride. ‘This is good.’ Richie says, mouth full, ‘Is there onions in this?’

‘Yeah,’ Eddie nods, ‘Why, do you not like onions?’ He frowns a little.

‘No, no,’ Richie says, and Eddie relaxes again. ‘I’m just a little allergic to them. No biggie.’ He takes another bite.

‘You're allergic?’ Eddie's head pops up, meerkat like and he's using his _oh holy shit_ voice.

‘Yeah.’ Richie says, swallowing. Eddie looks very pale.

‘Why the fuck are you still eating it?’ Eddie demands, outraged.

'It’s fine.’ Richie curls his hands around his plate protectively, ‘My tongue just itches a little.'

‘That is _not_ fine - Richie! Stop eating it!’

Eddie stayed over that night, which Richie finds out when he wakes up the next morning on the couch, his neck protesting but the rest of him feeling warm, after falling asleep watching the next X-Men movie on the list they’re working through. He sits up and finds Eddie set up at his working station, headphones in as he seems to be trying to argue quietly with a colleague over skype. He fails miserably but Richie appreciates the sentiment. Eddie catches him looking and mimes _sorry_ at him but Richie just gestures for him to get back to it and goes to make them breakfast, Peaches dancing happily around his feet when he gets to the fridge.

+

The emoji system helps. There’s an instant pressure that falls from Richie’s shoulders that he didn't realise he was carrying, every month he seems to be getting lighter and lighter. It’s his last scheduled month in New York but Richie has had talks with Steve about relocating permanently, which Steve was fine with on the condition Richie show up for a voice acting gig he had him booked for at the end of the month. 

In the meantime, Richie’s been working on his comedy script. He’s on a skype call with Bill, with who he has begun weekly writing sessions to keep them both motivated but it usually disarms them from any productive work. Richie has a habit of feeding into Bill's more ridiculous ideas for his new book and Bill always somehow manages to make Richie’s jokes 10x darker than is warranted for Richie’s new target audience. So not much work gets done but it’s a fun couple of hours of their week that they can use to catch up.

The conversation inevitably ends up about what Mike and Bill are up to since their lives are a lot more exciting than he is currently. Bill had thought Mike was wanting to see the classic American landmarks that he’d missed out on while staying in Derry his whole life but it turns out Mike had actually compiled a list of supposedly supernatural hotspots across the country. This worried everyone for a while that he was stuck in the past until they realised that Mike is just, like, _really_ into ghosts. So that's what they’re doing. Bill says he’s been journaling and documenting their visits to the most haunted places in America and is thinking about releasing it with Mike's research which Richie does honestly think is a great idea. Bill looks happy at least.

‘You look happy.’ Richie remarks and Bill chuckles.

‘Yeah, I am.’ He says it like he’s amazed, ‘It’s like...My whole life I was just living this role that I thought I was supposed to have. Like I was one of my characters in my books - with the job and the wife and the house and...Now I’m finally just living.’ Bill and Eddie have also been talking a lot.

Richie’s chest aches, ‘That’s great, man. I’m proud of you.’

Bill laughs, ‘You getting mushy on me Trashmouth?’

‘Alright, see if I try to be sincere with you ever again. I hope Mike leaves you for a ghost.’

‘Oh man, don't even joke-’ Bill despairs.

+

It’s his last (scheduled) weekend in New York and Richie’s head keeps circling back to the conversation with Bill particularly when Eddie comes over for his farewell dinner and to pick up a list that Richie made by his request of Peaches’s needs. Eddie and Bev have enthusiastically agreed to be taking care of Peaches while Richie spends the week in California. Eddie knows exactly how to care for the bunny by now but Richie writes him out the list anyway, touched by Eddie’s caution. They’re planning to watch the final movie in their X-Men marathon that night, and Richie is dishing out slices of pizza onto plates because they compromised on ordering take out as long as they used real cutlery.

Richie is explaining and possibly spoiling the plot of the movie but Eddie enables him by asking questions unable to help himself. Richie takes a piece of paper towel, still talking and blots at the grease on Eddie’s pizza in the way he’s called Eddie out on for being fussy. He throws out the paper towel and hands Eddie his plate, he’s somehow moved on from X-Men to talking about dinosaurs, and plates up his own food quickly.

He turns to Eddie and then Richie is pressed against the fridge being kissed within an inch of his life. His arms flail and he drops his plate on the counter beside him and catches Eddie, arms curling around his back holding on for dear life. Eddies are cupped tightly around Richie’s jaw tilting him upwards and Richie makes a strangled noise when Eddie’s tongue brushes his lips, causing Eddie to pull back, gasping.

They pant at each other wide-eyed. Richie is still pressed against the fridge, afraid that it’s the only thing keeping him upright.

‘What are you doing?’ Richie croaks. Eddie swallows still out of breath and runs his hand over his hair.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Why did you kiss me?’ 

Eddie looks at him helplessly, ‘Because I wanted to.’

‘Okay,’ It’s not, ‘But what does that mean?’ His chest is starting to pang periodically and it's becoming increasingly difficult to take in full breaths. 

Eddie shakes his head, ‘Does it have to mean anything right now?’ And it’s the wrong answer.

Richie feels like a well has just opened up deep inside of him, his arms and chest ache and he begins to feel himself shutting down.

Richie is tempted to say no. That it doesn't need to mean anything at all and just let Eddie kiss him like when they were kids. He almost gives in but what he says is;

‘Yeah.’

‘What?’ Eddie asks.

‘Yeah, I think it does have to mean something, for me.’ Richie takes an uneven breath, eyes itching ‘Because I can't do this if you're going to change your mind again. Ed's, I think it would kill me.’

‘Oh.’ Eddie looks small.

‘Sorry.’

‘No! God no.’ Eddie's face twists, ‘I shouldn't have- I know how you feel I shouldn't have acted on impulse. That wasn't fair.’ He crosses his arms but is resolute.

‘It’s okay.’ Richie whispers. Eddie rubs at his face and hair again, distressed. 

He sighs and turns to Richie, ‘So what now?’

Richie clears his throat, ‘I have to go to LA soon for that job.’ Eddie nods, eyes serious and Richie makes up his mind. ‘I might stay there. For a while.’

Eddie's face collapses a little before it goes completely blank. Richie looks down at his feet. He’s staring at the tiles of the kitchen floor and realises hysterically that he can’t even remember what the floors in his house look like.

‘I think some space would do us good.’ Richie adds when Eddie says nothing.

‘If that's what you want.’ Neutral. Richie can’t tell what he’s thinking and he clenches his jaw tight. Richie nods, still staring at the floor. He doesn’t look up when Eddie leaves.

Bev calls the next day when Richie is packing to ask when she should come over to pick up Peaches. The eager way she offers herself to help in any other way is how Richie knows that Eddie has told her something happened. It settles heavily in his gut, the thought of then pitying him but he shoves it down and out of sight in a practiced motion and tells her where he’ll hide his spare key.

+

The night before Richie leaves for LA he opens the door to find a very wild-eyed Eddie Kaspbrak sweating on his doorstep.

‘Eddie. Hey.’ Richie blinks and invites him in automatically, the surprise rendering him to forget to be awkward. Then he stops and actually registers the sight in front of him. Eddie’s hair is ungelled, a style not totally unheard of these days but still rare enough to raise an eyebrow. On days Eddie goes without the gel he still _styles his hair, Richie_ so his natural waves sit rumpled in a way that means it took Eddie 30 minutes in the bathroom to perfect. Right now though his hair sticks up wild, the waves that are too short now to be considered curls, fly in opposite directions around his head, resulting in a look that is _very_ suggestive and also a little mad scientist-y but the small lock that hangs from his widow's peak to curl against his forehead is so reminiscent to 16-year-old Eddie who’d stopped cutting his hair in defiance of his mother that Richie feels the familiar cracking in his chest that reminds him why seeing Eddie is a bad idea. He’s thinking of a polite way he can ask Eddie to leave _again_ but gets distracted once again by the fact Eddie is sweating.

‘Why are you sweaty?’ Richie asks, perturbed.

‘I ran here.’ Eddie says like it’s totally normal to run a 20-minute train ride in jeans and loafers. 

‘Wh- Eddie what the hell?’ Now that Richie looks at him properly, he can see the way Eddie has clearly shoved on the first things he could find before he left his apartment. Along with his worn jeans and brand new designer work shoes, Eddie seems to be wearing a rumpled white suit shirt that is buttoned almost entirely wrong, the first three buttons aren't done up at all and hang out the collar of Beverly’s green knit sweater which sits slightly cropped on him. He hadn’t even bothered with a jacket. All of this is topped off with the craziest eyes Richie has ever seen on a human being, and he saw Mike in Derry.

‘Don't go to LA.’ Eddie says. Wait-

‘What?’

‘Don’t go back to LA.’ Eddie repeats, unfaltering.

Richie sighs, and rubs at his eye under his glasses with his pinky, exhausted, ‘Eddie-’

‘No listen to me, you love it here. You love that diner and the pizza place and you love the museums and those weird art shows that I think are dumb and - and you work better here anyway, you know you do.’

‘Eddie,’ Richie shakes his head, ‘I told you I can't do this-’

‘I’m falling in love with you.’ Eddie blurts, staring at him with a look on his face that Richie has never seen before. 

And that stops him.

‘So you can't go to LA. ‘Cause I'm not done yet’ Eddie looks at him determinedly, the way Richie has only seen him look once, in the sewers when he told the clown _It wasn't shit_ then kicked It in the face.

‘ _What_?’ 

‘Yeah.’ Eddie croaks, deflating a little.

‘Eddie’ Richie’s voice shakes, ‘If this a joke..’

‘Rich. C’mon, I wouldn't.’ Eddie pleads, staring at him with his stupid sad eyes. He shakes his head at Richie, the stray curl of hair on his forehead bobbing and he mouths something Richie can’t make out before insisting in a whisper, ‘I wouldn’t.’ 

Richie can feel his hands start to tremble and he hides them in the pocket of his stupid New Mom sweater, twisting his fingers into the soft fabric as though he can grab at the comfort. He grimaces at the wall above Eddie’s head and tries to say, ‘Listen, are you sure you're not just confus-

‘Hey.’ Eddie immediately stops him, ‘Fuck you. I never denied your feelings.’ True. But also-

‘Yeah, well, I never told you that I didn't love you.’

Eddie winces at that with his whole face and Richie swallows past it. His hands are now twisting together in his pocket and he pinches at the web of skin between his forefinger and thumb repeatedly to ground himself.

‘Rich, I didn't have all my memories.’ Eddie says, nonsensically. Richie feels his brow furrow while he stares at Eddie's shoes, not understanding the sudden turn in the conversation.

‘From Derry I mean. I had a lot but- not all of them, especially those last couple of years.’

‘Okay?’ It sounds flat to his own ears.

Eddie sighs, ‘So I didn't think I was in love with you when we were kids. I _liked_ you, sure and I had a crush on you but love was like... like _grown-up_ stuff, y'know?’ He looks a little insane.

‘So I didn't _think_ I was in love then. So I wasn’t like...lying to you. About that. But now with the-’ Eddie breaks off to gesture at the room around them and then to Richie as a whole, ‘All the lunches and the dinners and - Rich, we've basically been dating since I was still with Myra. Even if we didn't call it that. So yeah, I was falling in love with you and- and with _Peaches_ and this apartment. I just didn't realise that that’s what it was until I kissed you.’ Eddie finishes looking at Richie, chest heaving.

And Richie.

Richie looks at him and he allows himself to really think about the past three months. How Eddie was the one who brought up their past relationship, who wanted to talk about it until Richie shut him down outside the hospital. Who, when Richie told him he was still in love with him, thought that love was something that had to be earned. Eddie, who strong-armed his way back into Richie’s life and into his home despite Richie holding him at arm's length. Edward Kaspbrak who left his abusive wife and didn’t say a word about it in case it made _Richie_ uncomfortable. Eds, who looked around at Richie’s things and asked to know about where he got every single one of them and _how old was he_? and _was he happy?_ Eds, who knew when to treat him gently and when to push. Little Eddie Spaghetti, who was his first crush, his first everything who Richie held to an unrealistic standard and somehow didn't resent him for it.

Eddie, who was falling in love with him and wasn't done yet.

‘Really?’ Richie rasps out weakly.

Eddie nods deadly serious, ‘Applesolutely.’

Richie chokes out a shocked laugh and Eddie watches him, smiling shakily in relief. Richie looks down and lets out a few more hysterical chuckles, overwhelmed. 

‘That's not all.’ Eddie says softly. He looks nervous.

‘There's _more?_ ’

‘I found this in my desk when I was moving my stuff out.’ Eddie takes a folded piece of paper from his back pocket that Richie recognises as a letter. ‘I’ve had it for years, but never opened it, just pushed it aside and told myself I’d read it eventually or throw it out. But I never did.’ Eddie looks at it one last time and hands it over to Richie, who takes his hand out of his pocket and reaches for it hesitantly. Still a little dazed. Eddie reads the confusion on his face and he runs his hand through his hair and then scratches at the back of his neck, a nervous habit that he's picked up from Richie he notes, faintly.

‘I didn’t read it until like an hour ago.’ Eddie says quickly, ‘Just so you know... I wasn’t like hiding this from you, but it turns out this is the _second_ time I’ve done this which is so-’ Eddie curls his lip, frustrated.

‘Eds. Breathe.’ Eddie takes a shaky breath and nods in thanks. 

‘I wrote it the night I left Derry.’ Eddie says meaningfully. It hangs in the air between them. Eddie looks at Richie with wet eyes, ‘I was gonna send it when we got the new house, but.’ He shrugs helplessly. He forgot.

Richie looks down at the letter, suddenly feeling like he’s holding Eddie’s soul, he eases his grip trying to protect it from his rough hands, even though it's already been squished in Eddie's pocket. He looks up at Eddie and he doesn't know what his face is doing but Eddie nods sympathetically.

‘Yeah, I know.’ Eddie says, very gently. ‘Read it.’ Eddie moves further into the living room and locates Peaches who poked his head out at the commotion and kneels down to pet him, not looking at Richie, giving him a moment.

Eagerly, Richie sits down and takes the letter out of its unsealed envelope, and starts to read. His eyes immediately jump to _but you’re my favourite person_ and his breath catches. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Eddie's head jerk up to look at him instinctively before quickly going back to playing with Peaches. Richie forces himself to go back and read from the beginning, his hands shaking so much that it makes it frustratingly more difficult and the tight ball in the bottom of his throat is slowly filling like a balloon, ready to go any second. _and maybe that's enough._ He stares blankly at the page. And then he goes back and reads it all again, not entirely convinced he read it right, considering this moment was an exact fantasy he had every night when he was 18 years old.

He finishes again and stares at the words for a few seconds. Then he looks up at Eddie who's looking back at him timidly.

Eddie hesitantly gets to his feet and rubs at his own arm, his eyes flicking back and forth rapidly, searching Richie's face for a sign of reaction. Richie tries to smile at him reassuringly and feels his lips wobble. 

Eddie's face immediately flattens, ‘Oh shit.’

Richie stares at him, then drops his head in his hands and breaks.

‘Oh no-’ Eddie panics, ‘No no no, hey.’ He hurries forward and drops down on the ground in front of Richie, hands hovering frantically not knowing where to touch. ‘Stop doing that.’ He scolds angrily which means he’s really worried.

‘I’m trying, they won't go back in.’ Richie warbles pathetically holding his hands firmly against his eyes, actually trying to scoop the tears back in. Eddie laughs gently and wipes away the stray tears he misses. 

‘You need to stop,’ Eddie's voice wavers, ‘Seriously. This sucks.’ 

Richie tries to laugh but it comes out as a sob. It comes deep from his chest as something inside him snaps, like Eddie’s arm being snapped into place so it could heal. Once he starts Richie can’t stop, the sobs shaking his whole body from the effort to silence them. Eddie makes a hurt sound.

‘Oh - _no_ , hey,’ Eddie pulls Richie down gently by the neck, raising up onto his knees, and holds Richie’s face firmly to his chest. ' _Hey_ , you’re okay.’ Eddie whispers, rocking them gently, and Richie finally starts to let go of the last 20 years. 

‘Rich, I'm so sorry.’ He runs his hand up through Richie’s hair and clutches lightly, holding him tight to his chest.

When Richie manages to calm himself, he leans back and tries to look at him. His glasses are wet and smudged, fogged-up from when he was breathing into them wetly on Eddie's shoulder. Eddie takes them gently and cleans them on his own shirt, while Richie wipes his face. Gross.

Eddie raises back up on his knees again and gently slides the glasses onto Richie’s nose. Richie blinks rapidly and when his eyes adjust he pauses, realising they’re eye to eye.

‘Hey.’ Richie says, dumbly.

‘Hi.’ Eddie says, amused. In love. Jesus.

Richie swallows, ‘This would be a bad time to tell you that I'm over you, right?’

Eddie punches his arm. He can’t quite break the smile on his face though.

‘Okay, okay,’ Richie relents, ‘No jokes. Would serve you right though.’ 

‘I love you.’ Eddie says.

Richie lets out a burst of breath through pursed lips, eyes wide. Eddie is still smiling at him. Waiting.

‘Oh...cool.’ Richie says. 

‘ _Cool?_ ’ Eddie says but his smile grows impossibly wider. He moves one of his hands into Richie’s front pocket and yanks him closer. His other hand comes up to tug at the hoodie strings smiling at it fondly. It truly is Richie's favourite thing he owns and now he’s _never_ taking it off. He’s convinced it has magic powers.

Richie nods, ‘The coolest.’ He says, clearly trying not to cry again. He doesn’t have to say it back, Eddie knows well enough.

But he will say it again later in the kitchen when they're eating leftovers and Eddie pats down his slice of pizza fussily. And he’ll say it again when they’re arguing over the last X-Men movie on their list. And again when Eddie kisses him to win the argument. And he’ll say it again and again and _again_ that night, breathless. And then they’ll both yell it across airport security when Richie goes to LA, and they’ll say it every night into the phone until he comes home.

For now, though they smile dopily at each other and when Eddie leans in, they meet in the middle.

+++

**Author's Note:**

> If you got this far thank u <3 i couldn't find a way to work the letter into the fic (my pacing is already terrible) but you should know that eddie first fell in love with richie when he gave eddie a pre peeled orange because he knew eddie hates the way the peel stains his fingers. Also i do actually have richies list of eddie’s facial expressions - if anyone is interested i could add it as a small companion piece? Let me know!  
> You can find me on twitter @toeshur if thats your thing :)


End file.
